A Sitcom Worth Watching

Has anyone caught My Boys on TBS? There was a marathon on yesterday during the annoying Super Bowl. Now, don't get me wrong: We watched the Super Bowl here. But we watched in HD, so the TiVo was free to record 7 hours of this charming little sitcom.

As a glance at the list on the left of this page will tell you, I don't generally bother with half hour shows. Sure, I've seen enough episodes of Friends to know the general gist of the show, but most of the time I just don't get addicted enough to sitcoms to want to keep them on my season pass list. It's not that I don't like comedy. I do. But it has to be comedy of a certain sort and not the sort based on the notion that one of the main characters is charmingly annoying or fat or dumb (see, e.g., 30 Rock, Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, etc., the list goes on and on). I love Boston Legal which is, quite arguably, a comedy. Ed was great fun while it lasted. But there haven't been very many thiry-minute shows that make my list.

My Boys has a great female lead, P.J., played fabulously by Jordana Spiro. She is a sports-obsessed, pretty-but-tomboyish Cubs beat reporter. She is surrounded by her male friends who play poker and drink at the local corner pub. Despite my general distaste for baseball, the baseball metaphors that set the theme for each episode make some sense to me and don't seem too forced or obtrusive. The show has been compared to Sex in the City, which is probably fair. But this show will, perhaps, appeal to those of us who would rather kick back on the couch and watch the Pats than shop for designer footwear on Newbury Street.

So I'll watch the four episodes on my TiVo that I haven't gotten to yet, and I'll make sure my TiVo is set to catch the new eps when they come around this summer. You should set yours, too!